at what age did you all start collecting

**JOHN IDEM** · 30-07-2005, 06:25 AM

don't know if this has been discussed before but at what age did you all start collecting records

... i started when i was 13 .... was not that early really but have amass many since, as i am 33 now ..

**eric-adams** · 30-07-2005, 08:14 AM

my first one was given to me by my dad when i was about 12 ish then i realised i could buy them my self when i was 13 ish and been hooked scince. im 28 now. wel will be on the 23rd anyway

**Capela** · 30-07-2005, 08:16 AM

Once a few LP's arrive that I'm waiting for, I can say that I started at my current age: 20.

**Shiftless When Idle** · 30-07-2005, 08:50 AM

First record i owned i was 6...first record i bought i was 7

**Col Wolfe** · 30-07-2005, 09:24 AM

As soon as I started earning money, 15. Nearly 20 years ago! I've had 2 regretful clearouts in this time. The first was getting rid of the skin reggae 45s to fund the northern collection and then getting rid of the northern 45s to fund the psych collection. If only I could have kept them all

**cellblockher** · 30-07-2005, 10:03 AM

I guess I would have been 13 years old. The very first lp I bought from a place called Dead Wax was the KPM Drama lp with interpol, funky pusher etc on it.

Sob story here though, I lost my entire collection (which wasn't huge but it was quality stuff) was lost in a house move some years ago. Now I scrape together what I can music wise! lol

I'm 27 now and if I had kept up the collection at the rate I was gaining it wold be in the 100's now...sigh.

**Mr Muench** · 30-07-2005, 10:09 AM

Bought my first record at age 13 (ish). De La Soul 3 ft high & rising for 3 quid. Didn`t get serious until i went to uni age 18. So thats 10 years serious collecting

Never thought about that before, thats gone quick.

**deeno** · 30-07-2005, 10:23 AM

can't really remember but i bought every public enemy and run dmc record at the time when they coming out. so i guess i was 13 or 14 years old.(i'm 31 now) in the meantime i had also several clear outs and i remember that i had a time of 2 years in which i don't bought any vinyl.

**Mutante** · 30-07-2005, 10:38 AM

I also started when I about 13 or 14, it was as soon as I started earning cash from my paper round.
hip hop 45s from Woolworths were my regular purchases...happy days!!

**benjamin hatton** · 30-07-2005, 11:36 AM

i started about 11/12 years old (1988)...there's been loads of big clearouts along the way as well, dread to think of the crap i'd have knocking about if i hadn't!

**platerpus** · 30-07-2005, 12:38 PM

i started buying records at the age of 4...by the time i was 6 i had started making trips over to the states to clean out warehouses...

**maWhie** · 30-07-2005, 12:42 PM

I remember owning a bruce forsyth record when I was about 6 or so, this was my first vinyl experience. I bloody loved that record the two tunes I remember, that I would constantly play over and over again were, is it? "spread your wings, now fly to daddy" ??? and the classic "chin-up, chin-up". I played this record so much that my older brother got pissed off and took the record offf the platter (while I was listening to it) and smashed it in to many different pieces. I was heart broken, scarred for life.

Started getting into vinyl proper like when I was about 14 around 92 , it was the hardcore jungle scene that sucked me in I amassed about 50 odd nice records from that era that I sold of for pittence around 94, 95, which I soo regret

**sermad** · 30-07-2005, 02:28 PM

Originally Posted by platerpus

i started buying records at the age of 4...by the time i was 6 i had started making trips over to the states to clean out warehouses...

liar liar stay-dry pull ups on fire!

**kikat** · 30-07-2005, 02:47 PM

First 7 inch was TOM HARK by THE PIRANHAS when i was 10
First LP was KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER same as above.
First Hip hop 12 inch was REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE 12 inch when i was 17.
First Hip hop LP was IT TAKES A NATION same as above.
First VV related record was BEACH PARTY by JAMES LAST about 9 years ago. Thought that looks interesting. Been thinking that ever since. I am now thirty bloody four, getting fatter, balder and more skint by the day. What the hell happened to my youth

.

**sermad** · 30-07-2005, 02:57 PM

I think I first bought a record in 1988. I believe it was Bomb The Bass 'Megablast' because it was used in a computer game I loved at the time.

Properly collecting heavily - Maybe 1993/94.

Slowed down in the last year. Its been good.

**benjamin hatton** · 30-07-2005, 03:27 PM

yeah, that first bomb the bass lp was amazing at the time as a yoof...

**Shiftless When Idle** · 30-07-2005, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by platerpus

i started buying records at the age of 4...by the time i was 6 i had started making trips over to the states to clean out warehouses...

So that's where all the good stuff went

I got addicted to buying comics too...from the age of about 6 to 13 i went to every Fete,Gala,Jumble Sale,Church sellout,School festival....god i can't tell you how many copies of Whizzer and Chips and old Dandies i had...comics...Summer specials...Annuals...BLISS

Started Chazzer digging for records when i was about ten...started as a sideline to the comics
Remember alot of my pocket money went on Adam and the Ants and Ten Pole Tudor....from a place on Leeds Market and when HMV and Virgin were good

Plus the Geoff Love Space and Super Hero albums rocked my world back then

Pretty sure one of the first records i actually heard on the radio and went out to buy was O Superman by Laurie Anderson...i must have been about 8 or 9 at the time...i got it from Morrisons

**Sie-Fly** · 30-07-2005, 04:25 PM

i can remember when all i had was a baron knights album,a single by the improvisors called loch ness nesse,and the scooby doo theme on 7"...

and then i got 'you'd better you'd bet by' the who cause i was a little mod and i thought that all the who did was make mod music!

and then i started picking up singles from WH smiths in lancaster on the old gold label-the zombies-she's not there / beatles stuff / bought the byrds -fifth dimension L.P on CBS cause it had a cover i liked a lot but at the time the music baffled me...

my mum who also does chazza shops daily used to pick up stuff for me,the hollies,the kinks,the herd,yardbirds....thanks ma..

and then somewhere,somehow i ended with a bloody roomful of records and a life of addiction to vinyl...i am sure i was happier when i only had 4 records though...

**dreskieboogie** · 30-07-2005, 04:47 PM

The first record I was giving that I remember was a 12" with "new york, new york" when my mom came home from NYC in '85 or '86. Im not sure my mom quite realised what she started.

The first lp I bought was probably John Farnham (ehhh) or Fat Boys "coming back hard again".

Started buying hip hop lps in '91 or so and raregrooves etc. came later mid / late 90s....

So I guess that makes me new school?

Dress

**Headless mermaid** · 30-07-2005, 05:36 PM

The first record I bought myself was probably a Louis Armstrong tape when I was around 13-14, my pops' jazz listening was a big influence, he was a early "digger", used to bring mad jazz lps and tapes home from business trips and bump them in the car for the rest of us. Appreciated.
Started buying rap around 1984, one of the first was the Rap Attack comp with Wheels of steel, The message, Rappers delight etc. Sound foundation!

**dreskieboogie** · 30-07-2005, 06:11 PM

Headless, you're so so real

Dress

**pitch** · 30-07-2005, 08:25 PM

The only decent non-classical lp my parents had was Abbey Road - not a bad introduction to vinyl. The first thing i started to collect (rather than just buy as a new album) was everything i could find that related to Prince - I remember being overjoyed finding a copy of Mazarati's LP in a sale box in Our Price in Cambridge.....

When I went to college I didn't buy much vinyl - cds had just come out a couple of years earlier and I had bought the very first sony cd walkman (nice)... I was actually reintroduced to vinyl by my then girlfriend in around 1995 - we used to go to charity shops and she would always look at the vinyl - I had always assumed it was all rubbish - but I begun to discover the delights of Ted Heath, Ronnie Aldrich and our favourite - Burt Bacharach. This period was accompanied by the wonderful Club Indigo night at Madame JoJos (saw both Burt and Tony Bennett there) and later the Happiness Stan's at Smithfields (best club ever!!!). They (Karminskys etc) played these great tunes and, of course, I had to go and find them - never looked back.... the search continues.

So to answer the question - first got the bug when I was about 16 - got it again when I was 28

**Stoneface** · 30-07-2005, 09:42 PM

I was 8 in 1963 when I rode my bike to the 'Two Guys' department store and bought a Beach Boys album (can't remember which one) also had a bunch of Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Kinks, Mamas and Papas back in those days. I had older brothers and sisters that were into Motown, my dad was a real record junkie also ...... If only I had all of his records now

We had a nanny from Hamburg Germany that brought Beatles records in German over ... she also had a lot of Chuck Berry albums, which in retrospect in funny cause nobody in the states was listening to him at the time.

Had a great 8 track collection until my mother sold it all (along with my baseball card and slot car collection

) at a garage sale.

Just in case you are wondering, I am older, in fact I have kids older that a lot of you

**Campag Record** · 30-07-2005, 10:29 PM

Consider 1984 to be the first year I really got into vinyl as I bought my first rap record that year (Step Off-Grandmaster Melle Mel). Prior to that I listened to whatever my older sister bought, which was Motown, Beatles, The Who etc interspered with chart hits of the day ie Duran Duran, Human League, even Dollar for gods sake

This seems very strange now but when you're 10/11 years old music has no boundaries. I can see the same with my 16 year old cousins who can listen to Coldplay, Oasis, White Stripes, The Killers, The Vines, The Zutones along with Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent, 2 Pac

Kind of refreshing that they haven't got my cynical, grumpy old man outlook on music that probably most of us on here have as we know so much more about less commercial music than these uneducated fools

Right, what painfully bad LP can I pull out the racks now that only us 30+ year olds will appreciate

**MystDrF** · 30-07-2005, 10:47 PM

First record i bought was Sparks' This Town Ain't big Enough' Started 'collecting' in 1979 when i decided I had to have something by everybody on the Nuggets comp - seemed like a good idea at the time.

**stinkyweaselteets** · 30-07-2005, 10:54 PM

Earliest memory of a record i liked would have been a free keith chegwin flexidisc that had a game on it called traffic lights. The idea of the game was to run around on green, slow down on amber and stop on red...ah the memories of running round my grans house like a loon.
Earliest memories of listening to music would have been Billy joel, Neil diamond, the Beatles, the who, elvis, fleetwood mac...basically my mum and dads records (mainly my dads).
First started buying records at 15 when i got some insurance money. Mainly punk, ska and mod stuff (fancied myself as a mod one week, a rude boy the next and a punk the week after).
Started buying alot of records when i went to university mainly cos i started listening to hip hop. Have boughts lots on and off since then. Buying decks made me buy more, the discovery of ebay made me buy more, finding stuff at places like this made me buy more and the lack of money always made me buy less.
Can't say i'm a big collector of 45s although i have a coupla boxes, but am gradually starting to look out for them more.
Don't own a cd player (other than my computer) thus i don't own any cds. Not that i don't like cds, i just prefer to have things on vinyl (after all if there were no cds there would'nt be any cdrs and my own music would be stuck on tape or in my head).

**Motown67** · 31-07-2005, 07:10 AM

I started out collecting Rock and Metal at first about Jr. High which was about 1981. Loved Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Y&T, Accept, stuff of that nature. Went from genre to genre over the years. Rock, Metal, Punk, Ska/Reggae, Hip Hop, Soul/Funk. I just wished I woulda kept more of my old stuff because when I got into something new I would eventually sell off all my old records to buy new ones.

**Benicio Del Toffo** · 31-07-2005, 02:52 PM

First records I owned were Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier, Japan - Tin Drum and Gary Numan - Pleasure Principle on account that I had a generous cousin who saw me as a project (I was about 9 for God's sake! 34 now by the way.). Thank God he spared me his obsession with The Skids.

First records I actually bought for myself were Prince - Purple Rain LP (purple vinyl, still got it upstairs!) and Grandmaster Flash - The Message. Not a bad start. At least it wasn't the fucking 'Birdie Song' or some shite.

Serious collecting was triggered (like many people's) by 'Three Feet High and Rising' when it became a mission to find lots of the sampled tunes, particularly '(Not Just) Knee Deep'. From P-Funk it spread on to all manner of funk / soul / jazz etc and now I'm firmly ensconced in the prog genre.

Had several clearouts and in times of need had to sell on the big-hitters to fund new purchases with the various genres I tried to keep up with (drum'n'bass, trip-hop, big beat etc). Not being a wealthy sort, I've had to sell on more than I'd have liked and God knows how big my collection would have been if I'd not had to be so frugal (or had got off my arse and got a decent job rather than fannying around at Uni!!). It always makes me laugh/cry when visiting Soulstrut and seeing the records they go mad over and remembering the days when I had a copy and then had to sell it on (Skullsnaps, 24 Carat Black, Three Pieces, RAMP, Main Source, KMD, Showbiz & AG etc etc - fuck's sake!).

Better to have a manageable, working, fluid collection than an hoard though. At least that's what I tell myself when I switch the light off.....sniff!

**Lord Thames** · 31-07-2005, 03:40 PM

My parents had a box of records which throughout my childhood was dumped in my bedroom because they had nothing to play them on - I couldn't listen to them, but I used to like to look at them and wonder what delights lay within. Thus, an obsession was born.

Eventually, after experiments playing them with a broken turntable and a pin (I'd never do that now!), my brother got a record player off a friend of his for me - and then the madness began.

Aged ten, school jumble sale - first record bought, 'More Miller and Other Big Band Magic' by the Syd Lawrence Orchestra, having seen a big band on Pebble Mill a while before and liked what I heard. No escape now.

First visit to a charity shop - argh, more records! And no cash to buy them. Have spent the last fifteen years making up for that horrifying experience.....

And that's how I ended up here!

**vibra** · 31-07-2005, 05:44 PM

The first vinyl purchases I remember making were 'Our House' by Madness and Yazoo 'Don't Go', both from the cheapo 7" stand at my local newsagent. That must have been 1983. They used to cost 29p each or something silly like that.

I also entered a competition set by my bank in 1985, of which the 2nd prize was to win the top 10 LPs. The tie-breaker question was to name the musical artist you'd most like to meet and why, the first prize being to actually meet them. Now don't ask what on earth I was thinking back then, but for some reason within all of the many musical legends contained within this world, I most wanted to meet Paul Hardcastle. I wanted to ask why he made '19', because it seemed such a really interesting choice of subject matter, and I was already picking up on and digging the use of samples in music too. Anyway, I never did get to meet Mr Hardcastle, but one day a huge 12" brown cardboard box, very heavy and clearly stuffed full of records, was sitting at home with my name on when I got back from school. Now, I hardly ever got anything through the post, but obviously I *never* got anything like this. My parents kept telling me to just open it, while I was telling them "it must have the wrong name on" thinking that it was probably for my older brother. Anyway, I eventually opened it and of course it was the top 10 LPs. I couldn't believe it - I felt like I'd won the lottery. I played my LPs every day, and soon felt that I needed some more..